March 2009

Did US Assist Israeli Attack In Sudan?
Posted: Sunday, March 29, 2009

¤ Spanish Judge Accuses Six Top Bush Officials of Torture
Criminal proceedings have begun in Spain against six senior officials in the Bush administration for the use of torture against detainees in Guantánamo Bay. Baltasar Garzón, the counter-terrorism judge whose prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet led to his arrest in Britain in 1998, has referred the case to the chief prosecutor before deciding whether to proceed.

¤ G20 marches begin week of protests in Europe
¤ G20 summit: blow for Gordon Brown as £1.4 trillion spending blueprint is leaked

¤ The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government Video

¤ Brown snubbed over tax

¤ EU leader condemns US ‘road to hell’
European Union hopes for a new era in relations with the US were thrown into chaos on Wednesday when the holder of the EU presidency condemned American remedies for the global recession as “the road to hell”. Barely a week before Barack Obama is due to arrive in Europe on his first official visit as US president, Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Republic’s prime minister, put the 27-nation EU on a collision course with Washington.

¤ "We're all in this together" No we are not, that's the point.
Tonight, President Obama basically said that we can't demonize every investor who earns a profit, because "we are all in this together." Sorry, but I am going to have to call a big fat "bull-shit" on this one.
When Obama said "we" did he have a mouse in his pocket? Obama, and his family have a very opulent, slave-built roof over their heads. He travels on the public nickel, his children attend an exclusive Washington, DC private school that has organic food on its menu, and has health care that covers everyone in his family from head to toe and side to side and inside out.

¤ North Korea positions rocket for April liftoff

¤ US deploys warships as North Korea prepares to launch missile

¤ Obama doesn’t talk like Bush; he just acts like him
You can’t blame Dick Cheney for being annoyed at Barack Obama. Obama is closing Guantánamo. He’s ordering the CIA to interrogate prisoners according to the rules written in the Army Field Manual, which doesn’t allow torture. He’s even phasing out such classic Bushian phrases as “enemy combatant” and “war on terror.”

¤ AIG Exec Whines About Public Anger
¤ Insurance Industry is Simply a Parasite on the US Health System

¤ Teleprompter, the Jacket and the Laugh: A Presidency In Ruin
The writing should have been on the wall...and the teleprompter.
You know how the con works. The candidate ad-libs debate answers, dons a jacket and keeps laughter to a minimum. Then he gets elected president and BAM, he's revealed for what he is...a teleprompter reading, jacketless, laugher...guy. And therefore someone we cannot trust. Or at least so says the Republican attack machine.

¤ The Zombie Presidency
A majority of Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the Bush/Cheney regime ended, but has it? Like the zombie banks, the era of government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich lives on, with massive transfers of wealth from the poor to the rich continuing, as beleaguered poor and middle class taxpayers bail out the banks we are told are too big to fail.

¤ White House Replaces ‘War on Terror' With Symbol
¤ Israeli Attack On Sudan Killed At Least 39

¤ Did US Assist Israeli Attack In Sudan?
Oh what a slippery slope Obama is now on. This Sudanese attack has US cooperation and Intelligence assistance written all over it IMHO. It would appear that Israel is now going to be attacking and invading any country where it deems anything suspicious, and with the approval (or assistance) of the US government.

¤ Israel accused of indiscriminate phosphorus use in Gaza
¤ Israel ups anti-Iran rants as Bibi era nears

¤ How the Scam Works
¤ Pakistan: 50 dead in bombing near Afghan border
¤ Poor sell kidneys just to survive
¤ Iran Clarifies Its Response to Obama

¤ Is the Bailout Plan Breeding a Greater Crisis?
Obama’s advisers are focused on rescuing banks and the insurance company, AIG. They perceive the problems as solvency and paralyzing uncertainly or fear. Financial institutions, unsure of their own and other institutions solvency, hoard cash and refuse to lend. Credit is needed to get the economy moving, and the Federal Reserve and Treasury are doing their best to inject liquidity and to remove troubled assets from the banks’ books.

¤ Is the U.S.A. the World's Greatest Nation Now?
¤ 'Billions wasted' in Iraq reconstruction
¤ Bend Over and Say, "Uncle Sam"
¤ Peering into the Abyss
¤ Soros on Main Street and Wall Street
¤ Monsanto Planting Cyber Seeds
¤ Obama's Fall Guy

¤ The Big Con on Iraq
Despite President Barack Obama’s statement at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina Feb. 27 that he had "chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months," a number of Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs), which have been the basic U.S. Army combat unit in Iraq for six years, will remain in Iraq after that date under a new non-combat label.

¤ The return of scarlet fever

Two Options To Save U.S Economy: Declare Default or Trigger War
Posted: Sunday, March 22, 2009

¤ Canada Can't Muzzle Me
The Canadian immigration minister Jason Kenney gazetted in the Sun yesterday morning that I was to be excluded from his country because of my views on Afghanistan. That's the way the rightwing, last-ditch dead-enders of Bushism in Ottawa conduct their business. Kenney is quite a card. A quick trawl establishes he's a gay-baiter, gung-ho armchair warrior, with an odd habit of exceeding his immigration brief. Three years ago he attacked the pro-western Lebanese prime minister, Fuad Siniora, for being ungrateful to Canada for its support of Israeli bombardment of his country.

¤ Iran's Khamenei rebuffs Obama overture
¤ Iran's supreme leader dismisses Obama overtures
¤ U.S. President Obama's video message to Iran

¤ Happy Birthday, Iran!

¤ What Obama should have said to Iran
To the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran:
Best wishes to your nation during your celebration of Nowruz. I hope the new year brings better relations between our two nations. In honor of this occasion I will be offering tangible steps of our efforts to foster better relations. Our nation has done yours countless wrongs over the decades and for this I am sorry. I want to let you know that you have very good reasons to be distrustful of my overtures but I hope after your leaders and I meet face to face we can work out appropriate reparations which the US will like some time to pay due to our current economic crisis.

¤ When Things Fall Apart
On March 19 the New York Times reported: “The Fed said it would purchase an additional $750 billion worth of government-guaranteed mortgage-backed securities, on top of the $500 billion that it is currently in the process of buying. In addition, the Fed said it would buy up to $300 billion worth of longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.” The Federal Reserve says that its purchase of $1 trillion in existing bonds is part of its plan to revive the economy. Another way to view the Fed’s announcement is to see it as a preemptive rescue. Is the Fed rescuing banks from their bond portfolios prior to the destruction of bond prices by inflation?

¤ Fake Outrage in Washington
Watch out if you live in or visit Washington, D.C. If you see a camera or microphone, be careful not to be trampled by a politician rushing to shout their "outrage" at AIG, and its brazen scheme to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees at the company unit responsible for driving the company to the edge of insolvency. Maybe the politicians really are outraged. (They definitely know their constituents are.) But it would have helped if they had expressed some outrage -- and opposition -- during the decades-long period of deregulation that brought us the AIG collapse and the financial meltdown.

¤ Obama and the Altar of Greed
¤ A Nation of Immigrants

¤ The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

¤ The President is Wasting the Country's Time...

¤ What Can Bush Teach Us?

¤ Do GM Crops Increase Yield? The Answer is No
Lies, damn lies, and the Monsanto website. Tell a lie a hundred times, and the chances are that it will eventually appear to be true. When it comes to genetically modified crops, Monsanto makes such an effort - and it could be that you too are duped into accepting their distortions as truth. My attention has been drawn to an article titled "Do GM crops increase yield?" on Monsanto's web page, although I must confess that this is the first time I have visited their site.

¤ British Whistle-Blower Urges Iraq War Public Inquiry
¤ Falsehoods (13) and Myths (4) of National Economic Policy

¤ The Big Takeover
It's over – we're officially, royally f****d. No empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far.

¤ Bernie and the Scapegoats
"In places like El Salvador and France, new governments are elected and millions march in the streets in protest, while here, we are moved to hate scapegoats while worshipping and financing their creators. A public divided into identity groups and relatively powerless unions becomes easy to work into a frenzy over individual villains while kept from noticing that the problem is the social institution and not its individual sales and accounting staff. Hopefully, and before it’s too late, we can learn from the example of other nations and social movements, which are demanding and getting radical social change, rather than accepting the status quo by their forced concentration on punishing individual celebrity villains."

¤ White House and Pentagon: Change, Continuity and Escalation

¤ Jews, Arabs and the Impact of Mass Media
The power of media can be incredible. Jews are amazing people because they have been able to control the most powerful medium in the world. The vast majority of people don’t really know what is happening around the world. Average Americans, whether simple workers, plumbers, carpenters, drivers or sales assistants don’t even know what is happening outside the United States. Most people acquire information and knowledge from mass media channels, whether Internet, TV, radio or newspapers.

¤ ARIJ study: “Settlements increased by 173% in 20 years”

¤ Racist and sexist Israeli military shirts show the mindset that led to war crimes in Gaza

¤ Video: Israeli soldiers say killing of civilians 'allowed'
¤ IDF Soldiers Admit ‘Shoot to Kill’ Orders Against Gaza Civilians

¤ A Forgotten Humanitarian Disaster
The sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq is a sad occasion for the balance sheet: during six years of occupation 1.2 million citizens were killed, 2,000 doctors killed, and 5,500 academics and intellectuals assassinated or imprisoned. There are 4.7 million refugees: 2.7 million inside the country and two million have fled to neighbouring countries, among which are 20,000 medical doctors. According to the Red Cross, Iraq is now a country of widows and orphans: two million widows as a consequence of war, embargo, war again and occupation, and five million orphans, many of whom are homeless (estimated at 500,000). Almost a third of Iraq’s children suffer from malnutrition.

¤ Will Congress Pass Ponzi Healthcare? Let’s Say 'No' in Des Moines
¤ Change You Can Parse: Obama Abandons Bush's Talk, Keeps His Walk

¤ Obama Must Reach Out to Chavez
Hugo Chavez is often painted as a dangerous demagogue or tyrannical dictator by his many detractors. The bigger picture that is often overlooked about Chavez is that el Norte is primarily responsible for this man's rise to power. The US involvement in the nations south of our border have been historically atrocious and basically under reported.

¤ Chalabi says the CIA was expecting a Baathist coup against Saddam

¤ Afghanistan and Iraq: War Crimes Against Children ascribed to former President Bush

¤ Didn’t We All See This Coming?
The country is coming to conclusions that a year ago would be unthinkable. The current turmoil on Wall Street has convinced many Americans of something that has been said for years, but nobody really believed…entirely. That something was that lawyers and bankers cannot be trusted. The American people know by now that the advice is largely true, they can’t be trusted.

¤ Myth America
¤ USA Has Two Options To Save its Economy: Declare Default or Trigger War

U.S. National debt hits record $11 trillion
Posted: Thursday, March 19, 2009

¤ Top UN official says U.S. demonizing Iranian president

¤ Venezuela: Confronting capitalism's crisis with more revolution
In some countries, the severe crisis of capitalism has resulted in a realignment of respective governments with the imperialist powers — and the adoption of different forms of cut backs that affect the living conditions of the majority. In the Venezuela, the opposite is occurring.

¤ U.S. National debt hits record $11 trillion

¤ At G20, Kremlin to Pitch New Currency

¤ Shoes thrown to protest Bush

¤ Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?
Professor Michael Hudson (CounterPunch, March 18) is correct that the orchestrated outrage over the $165 million AIG bonuses is a diversion from the thousand times greater theft from taxpayers of the approximately $200 billion “bailout” of AIG. Nevertheless, it is a diversion that serves an important purpose. It has taught an inattentive American public that the elites run the government in their own private interests.

¤ The Real AIG Conspiracy
It may seem odd, but the public outrage against $135 million in AIG bonuses is a godsend to Wall Street, AIG scoundrels included. How can the media be so preoccupied with the discovery that there is self-serving greed to be found in the financial sector? Every TV channel and every newspaper in the country, from right to left, have made these bonuses the lead story over the past two days.

¤ Beware the Madoff Diversion!
¤ Forget AIG Bonuses - The Next Bailout is Here
¤ Too Big to Fail is Too Big

¤ Those Hit Hardest Get No Bailout

¤ New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

¤ The City That Ended Hunger

¤ Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

¤ Loving Our Enemies, The People of Iran
¤ Israel troops admit Gaza abuses

¤ The Parable of the Shopping Mall
The savage reverses for capitalism, the gaping wounds in its pretensions, comprise the single most salient feature in the world today. Whether in the collapse in the western banking system, the agonies of post-Soviet economies like the Baltic and Eastern European Republics, the rubble of Indian neo-liberal policies, the economic mantras of an entire generation are going up in smoke. For the left it should be a time of unrivalled opportunity.

¤ Cheney's Mission Accomplished
¤ U! S! A! We're Number .... 15?
¤ credit card defaults rise to 20 year-high
¤ Lying Or Incompetent - Either Way, Geithner Needs to Be Fired

¤ Hey Stewart!: Lay Off AIG, Madoff and Cramer
Has America gotten so callous that we no longer appreciate the fine art of securities fraud? Am I the only one who's sick and tired of having pundits and holier than thou's demeaning the missteps of those who did what we all know we would have done if we were in their very expensive shoes?

¤ Make No Mistake -- Obama is Bush III
"He convinced millions of voters that he was different than Bush, but he is continuing fundamental Bush goals to secure foreign resources under American control.."

Venezuela: Confronting capitalism's crisis with more revolution
Posted: Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Manuel Sanchez, Caracas
14 March 2009

In some countries, the severe crisis of capitalism has resulted in a realignment of respective governments with the imperialist powers — and the adoption of different forms of cut backs that affect the living conditions of the majority.

In the Venezuela, the opposite is occurring.

Before and after the victory for the pro-revolution forces in the referendum on February 15, to allow elected officials to stand for re-election more than once, the decision to push forward with the transition to socialism was ratified.
Full Article : greenleft.org.au

Venezuela Bans Controversial "Trawl" Fishing
Posted: Wednesday, March 18, 2009

by Erik Sperling
March 17th 2009
Venezuelanalysis.com

Small-scale Venezuelan fishers rejoiced on Sunday as a Venezuelan government ban on trawling, also known as drag fishing, went into effect.

"Our parents' spirits are watching and celebrating together with us – they've finally eliminated the evil practice that destroyed our marine costs," declared Diomidio Hernandez, a representative of fishermen of the coastal state of Sucre.

The measure, announced a day earlier by Agriculture minister Elias Jaua during President Hugo Chavez's weekly television broadcast, is intended to protect coastal biodiversity and increase production by small fishermen, who have petitioned governments to outlaw the technique for decades.

"Tomorrow hundreds of thousands of fishermen and women will set out to fish for the food that our people need, protein for our children," Jaua said.

During the program, President Chavez pointed out that small-scale fishermen provide 70 percent of the country's fish, while the trawlers mostly caught shrimp for export.

Chavez announced that the government will invest 70 million bolivars (US$ 32 million) to convert or decommission trawling boats, as well as the development of fish processing plants. 30 trawling ships will be expropriated, Chavez said, due to the refusal of their owners to cooperate with the plans to adapt the boats to uses compliant with the new fishing regulations.

A representative from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Francisco Arias, applauded Venezuela's efforts, noting that the ban on trawling is "established in what we call the 'code of responsible fishing conduct,' and it may be one of the most difficult alternatives for governments to take." Arias suggested that the FAO might help study the impact of the new law, "which we believe will be very positive economically for the fishing industry."

Speaking directly to workers in the fishing industry, President Chavez explained the government's plans to "create socialist production companies where you will have a better quality of life."

"You will be your own bosses and your work will be for the well being of the nation, not to enrich some exploitative capitalist."

Venezuelan Farmer Rights Organizations Unite to Oppose Assassinations by Landed Elite
Posted: Tuesday, March 17, 2009

By James Suggett
March 13, 2009
venezuelanalysis.com

Several Venezuelan small farmer rights organizations united forces this week to prevent further assassinations of rural community organizers. The groups also marched to demand that the national government end impunity for those responsible for these crimes, and to support the government's land reform and food security measures.

"This popular front must struggle against impunity, against hired killings, and against paramilitarism," declared coalition leader Inder Herrera during the founding congress in Caracas on Tuesday.

The new front plans to team up with student activists, community councils, artisanal fisher organizations, and some state security forces to prevent any further assaults on rural community organizers.

Since Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez passed a land reform law in 2001, 214 rural activists have been murdered during their campaigns to carry out the law, according to the Ezequiel Zamora National Farmers Front.

Braulio Álvarez, a National Assembly legislator and the coordinator of the Simón Bolívar Farmers Front, said further investigations could reveal that that the actual number of politically motivated murders of rural organizers is more than 400.

The formation of the new front follows the assassination last Monday of Mauricio Sánchez, who had been leading the struggle for land reform in southern Zulia state, and farmer rights organizer Nelson López, who was shot 15 times in the back two weeks ago in Yaracuy state.

The government has arrested those suspected of having carried out the murders, but the farmers are calling for a national investigation of what they say is a network of large estate owners and private cattle ranchers associations who gave the orders for the crimes.

"We consider it important and transcendental that we investigate to the fullest and without hesitation the landed oligarchy that is killing our brothers in the rural communities," said Herrera Tuesday.

Venezuelan Agriculture and Land Minister Elías Jaua attended Tuesday's conference and promised to solicit a national investigation.

"We have come to listen to the proposals of this popular farmers' movement and to express the government's commitment not to allow this situation to continue," said Jaua.

"One of the most atrocious crimes is that somebody dies while struggling for a piece of land, that's why we are going to ask for an appointment with the Attorney General and the president of the Supreme Court to speed up these investigations," said the minister.

Over the past two weeks, the Agriculture and Land Ministry and other government entities have taken under public ownership two privately owned rice processing plants that were caught hoarding food and evading price controls, and thousands of hectares of underused or idle land, in accordance with the 2001 Land Law and 2008 Law on Food Security and Sovereignty.

The measures come shortly after a national referendum in which Venezuelan voters approved a constitutional amendment to abolish term limits on elected offices. Following the referendum, President Chávez said his administration will correct its past mistakes by deepening its policies aimed toward the construction of "21st Century Socialism."

The farmer rights organizations marched through Caracas Monday to support the government's expropriation of socially irresponsible businesses and private estates, and to demand an end to impunity for those who ordered the murder of farmers.

"We completely support the measures that our Commander Hugo Chávez has taken to occupy rice plants," said Herrera to the press. "We must deepen the revolution," he said as the marchers gathered in front of Venezuela's most powerful private business association and symbol of anti-government activity, FEDECAMARAS.

Minister Jaua recognized the need for the government to work with social movement organizations such as the farmer rights fronts in order for the hired assassinations to cease and the national food security policies to be effective.

"We receive this support from the farmers and we are filled with strength to continue the battle we are waging to guarantee the right to food security to the Venezuelan people," said the minister.

Source: venezuelanalysis.com

Tsvangirai crash: More questions than answers
Posted: Monday, March 16, 2009

¤ Tsvangirai crash: More questions than answers

¤ Leftist Victory in El Salvador Closes an Historic Cycle
The apparent victory of leftist candidate Maurico Funes in Sunday's presidential election in El Salvador finally closes out the Cold War in Central America and raises some serious questions about the long term goals of U.S. foreign policy. With Funes' election, history has come full cycle. Both El Salvador and neighboring Nicaragua will now be governed by two former guerrilla fronts against which the Reagan administration spared no efforts in trying to defeat during the entire course of the 1980's. We will now coexist with those we once branded as the greatest of threats to our national security. Those we branded as "international terrorists" now democratically govern much of Central America.

¤ The Latin American Right
¤ El Salvador Elects First Leftist President

¤ El Salvador's ex-rebels win polls
¤ Militants torch NATO supplies in Pakistan; 20 trucks reduced to ashes

¤ Red Cross Described 'Torture' at CIA Jails
¤ How The World Pimps America
¤ Suicide attack leaves 11 dead, 28 injured in S Afghanistan
¤ Kandahar villagers blame U.S. troops for deaths
¤ Sudan to 'expel all aid groups'

¤ Overtures toward Iran
"The "soft strategy" or "velvet revolution" theory has not gone unchallenged inside Iran. One Iranian academic referred to it as "a tool designed by the regime to silence its critics by linking them to a new US drive to topple the regime". The theory has however been gathering momentum and more and more Iranian hardliners argue that Obama has adopted a velvet revolution strategy against Islamic Iran."

¤ The Rape of Washington

¤ Criminalizing Poverty

¤ Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit
There is a codependent relationship between the private prison industry and the federal government's immigration enforcement apparatus. Immigrant detention jumpstarted the two largest prison companies—Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group—in the prison industry. The Immigration & Naturalization Service (INS) contracted CCA in 1983 and GEO (then Wackenhut Services, Inc.) in 1987 to provide prison beds for detained immigrants. These INS immigrant detention centers were among the first private prisons in the United States.

¤ The Rape of Washington
¤ Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

¤ Wall Street's House of Cards: Too Big...Period
Does anybody in the federal government know or could know "who, what, where and when" of the massive, complex, vertical, horizontal, global collapse of Wall Street and its planetary tentacles in over 100 countries abroad? Step forward if you exist! Uncle Sam needs you! Is the multi-million dollar bailout of this financial mess and house of cards, this phantom wealth mummy hitting air beyond the federal governments' salvage capability?

¤ Obama, this is no economic crisis, it is the systemic breakdown of capitalism
To eradicate a perennial depressive pestilence, it is necessary, not to white-wash its phenomenological fascist grimace or its 'humane' features, is not to pump trillions of barren paper greenbacks , more fiat money or fake capital, into its cancerous economic veins. Precisely this the desperate Democrats are now offering as world panacea to rejuvenate once more a senile Dracula, to prevent the inexorable demise of a global capitalist mode of production, that already destroyed millions and millions of precious, promising human beings, intrinsic parts of total planetary life itself.

¤ Venezuela Accelerates Land Reform
During a recent surge in land reform measures, Venezuela's National Institute of Lands (INTI) has taken public ownership of more than 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres) of land claimed by wealthy families and multi-national corporations and is reviewing tens of thousands more hectares across the nation, with the intention of promoting new forms of "social property" and sustainable agriculture managed by either cooperative businesses or the state.

¤ Is Marx the first theoretician of globalization obsolete?

Venezuela Accelerates Land Reform
Posted: Monday, March 16, 2009

By James Suggett
March 12, 2009
Venezuelanalysis.com

During a recent surge in land reform measures, Venezuela's National Institute of Lands (INTI) has taken public ownership of more than 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres) of land claimed by wealthy families and multi-national corporations and is reviewing tens of thousands more hectares across the nation, with the intention of promoting new forms of "social property" and sustainable agriculture managed by either cooperative businesses or the state.

On Tuesday, Agriculture and Land Minister Elías Jaua met with Aragua State Governor Rafael Isea to discuss agricultural development plans for the Tacarigua Valley that runs between the coastal states of Aragua and Carabobo.

Jaua identified 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) of soil in the valley that is very fertile but has been left idle or underutilized. The state plans to re-order agricultural production in the region by forming agrarian communes that produce crops that fit the natural state of the soil, accompanied by environmentally sustainable urban planning, Jaua explained.

Governor Isea said the government's goal is to steer agricultural development in the valley toward the "socialist" path. "The government wants to compel producers to generate new spaces and production units that allow us to advance toward the socialist model of production through the incorporation of social production enterprises," said Isea, adding, "We must establish a vision of collective property."

On Monday, the INTI and National Guard troops occupied a 2,800 hectare (6,916 acre) section of the privately owned Caroní farm in Barinas state. Speaking to the press, INTI President Juan Carlos Loyo declared, "These measures are based on the need to change the agrarian structure of our country from the private property of a few people to social property, that is, property of all Venezuelans, socialist property."

The plan is to construct a state-owned food producer and a technological research center on the recuperated lands, and eventually transfer control over production to a local cooperative enterprise run by members of the local community, said Loyo, who was accompanied by a local chapter of the national farmer rights organization Ezequiel Zamora National Farmers Front.

Meanwhile, INTI officials will calculate the value of the land in order to compensate estate owner Tobías Carrero Nácar, a powerful landowner and adversary of the government led by President Hugo Chávez, in accordance with the law.

Loyo emphasized that the "rescue" of these lands is based on the legal precept that the state is obligated to make sure the use of all lands contributes to the social well-being of the country.

Article 305 of the constitution obligates the state to intervene in land tenancy if necessary to guarantee food security, which is defined as a facet of national security. Also, Article 307 says, "The predominance of large landed estates [latifundios] is contrary to the interests of society." These two articles lay the legal groundwork for the land re-distribution procedures that are outlined in the Land Law of 2001 and the Law on Food Security and Sovereignty of 2008.

In a press release Monday, Carrero said he will take legal action against the INTI based on the argument that the confiscated lands do not surpass the legal limit of acreage that would classify them as a latifundio.

The Venezuelan government has also intervened in lands owned by multi-national corporations. Last week in the central Portuguesa and Lara states, government officials took partial administrative control of a plantation owned by one of the world's largest paper and cardboard packaging producers, the Ireland-based firm Smurfit Kappa Group.

President Chávez said the company's eucalyptus plantation between Lara and Portuguesa states "have sucked up almost all the water from the ground, and the rivers are running dry."

"We are intervening in this. We are going to exploit this wood in a rational manner, and then we are going to change it to another crop that is not eucalyptus," said the president Thursday.

Smurfit Kappa has not responded publicly to the Venezuelan government's decision. The company began producing in Venezuela in 1954. It now operates in 20 European countries and nine Latin American countries, and reported $7 billion in sales in 2008.

Also Thursday, President Chávez announced that the INTI has begun reviewing twelve large estates along a newly renovated highway between Lara and Portuguesa states, with the intention of constructing state-owned production facilities there.

Addressing the nation from a 2,300 hectare (5,681 acre) private farm called El Maizal in Lara state, newly appointed Public Works and Housing Minister Diosdado Cabello explained that the road improvements should not just support the production of the landed estates in the region, but it should also bolster new initiatives toward socialist agricultural production.

Loyo reiterated the government's plan to intensify the "struggle against large land estates," in the next stage of the "Bolivarian Revolution" that Chávez has led as president for ten years now.

Since Venezuelan voters approved a constitutional amendment last month that will permit Chávez and all other elected officials to run for office without term limits, the Chávez administration has begun making ten-year policy plans, assuming Chávez is re-elected to a third term as president in 2012.

These plans include granting more than 600 land titles and corresponding low-interest loans and credits to groups prepared to cultivate some of the 60,000 hectares (148,200 acres) of land that the INTI has taken under public ownership in Yaracuy state since the Land Law was passed in 2001, according to the Agriculture and Lands Ministry.

Source: venezuelanalysis.com

Iran says U.S. still "warmongering"
Posted: Tuesday, March 10, 2009

¤ Tsvangirai's Accident with UK and US Aid
The first Western news reports about the vehicular collision in Zimbabwe that claimed the life of Susan Tsvangirai and injured her husband, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, left many speculating that the accident could have been orchestrated by President Mugabe. The Herald, the Zimbabwe state media, was the first to publish that the vehicle which collided with Tsvangirai's Toyota Landcruiser belonged to USAID -- an American 'charity' that operates in Zimbabwe. According to the Herald, the registration number of the vehicle is "one of those allocated to the American Embassy technical support staff vehicles."

¤ Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai in horror crash

¤ Tsvangirai's wife killed in car accident

¤ Russian media teases Clinton over 'reset' button
¤ Turkey is a country in denial about its genocide of the Armenians
¤ It's Genocide. Full Stop.
¤ Israel's Ugly Face
¤ Memoricide in the West Bank
¤ Tangled Up in Karl

¤ The Crisis vs. the Dogma
A serious economic crisis can force some rethinking of economic and political dogma. The current crisis is serious for most of the world: the IMF is projecting world economic growth of just 0.5% this year – the worst since the second world war – and this number could easily be revised downward. In the United States, one of the first casualties of the current recession was the extreme fiscal conservatism that has plagued the country for decades.

¤ Being Serious About Torture...Or Not
¤ Muslim Weapons of Mass Destruction
¤ CNBC Hypes Its Owner, General Electric, As GE's Stock Plummet
¤ Baghdad suicide bomber kills 33

¤ West "not winning" in Afghanistan - Biden
.S. Vice President Joe Biden appealed to NATO allies on Tuesday to help the United States tackle worsening security in Afghanistan, saying the alliance was struggling to deal with a threat to the West as a whole. "The deteriorating situation in the region poses a security threat not just to the United States but to every single nation round this table," Biden told representatives of the 26-country military pact during a visit to Brussels. "We are not now winning the war, but the war is far from lost," he told a news conference after three hours of talks.

¤ George Galloway's Speaks To The People Gaza

¤ Iran says U.S. still "warmongering"
Iran's top military commander said the new U.S. administration was just as "warmongering" as its predecessor, but that the United States could not afford to attack Iran , an Iranian news agency reported on Tuesday.
Major-General Hassan Firouzabadi's comments came despite an offer by President Barack Obama to engage in direct talks with Tehran if it "unclenches its fist," and may disappoint Washington.

¤ Thirty-seven Colombians deported for alleged complot against Chávez

¤ Venezuela: material girls

¤ Gun Makers and Retailers Post Strong Sales Increases

¤ Blacks, Hispanics have steeper end-of-life costs
Striking new research shows dying blacks and Hispanics have much steeper treatment costs than whites, sobering evidence that racial health-care differences continue right up until death. It's not that minorities are being charged more than whites. It's that they tend to get more costly, intensive treatments including feeding tubes and other invasive medical procedures near death. That's in sharp contrast with what often happens throughout their lives, when minorities are less likely than whites to get aggressive medical care.

Members of U.K. Parliament Praise Venezuelan Government
Posted: Sunday, March 8, 2009

By James Suggett
March 6th 2009
Venezuelanalysis.com

During a parliamentary debate in the United Kingdom about U.K.-Latin American relations Tuesday, several members of parliament supported the Venezuelan government's anti-poverty programs and nationalizations of strategic industries, and urged the British government to take a more constructive approach to the South American nation. Also, the British Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, expressed support for Venezuela's anti-poverty programs.

Introducing the debate, MP Jeremy Corbyn highlighted that in Latin America today, "there is in the air a sense of optimism and, in many countries, of liberation from past oppressions."

"The huge changes that have recently taken place in Venezuela... show that there are different paths to development and out of poverty. Those paths do not necessarily rely solely on the traditional development of trade patterns," Corbyn continued.

MP Geoffrey Clifton-Brown challenged Corbyn with regard to the Venezuelan government's policy of nationalizing strategic industries. "Does [Corbyn] think that seizing assets by nationalization, whether in Venezuela or Bolivia, will encourage investment in delivering mineral resources, which in turn benefit the people through trade and exports?" he asked.

"Any government has the right to take into public ownership resources, industries and services," Corbyn responded. "That is what a sovereign nation can do... we have just taken several banks into public ownership."

Corbyn and other MPs also addressed what they said has been the misrepresentation of Venezuela and other Latin American countries in the British media.

"If one reads most of the press, one assumes that Evo Morales is some kind of stooge of President [Hugo] Chávez of Venezuela and that Bolivia is tantamount to a Venezuelan colony. That is absolute nonsense – there is no such feeling," he said. "There is a feeling of mutual support and solidarity."

MP Colin Burgon, the chair of the Labour Friends of Venezuela group within the parliament, cited three examples of falsehoods printed in the British media about Venezuela, including the assertion that President Chávez is a dictator who jails political dissidents, and asked that the parliament "make sure that we do not engage in, or succumb to, the kind of misinformation that we have experienced over the past few years."

Burgon noted the millions of Venezuelans who have emerged from poverty and gained access to primary health care through the Barrio Adentro program, and praised Venezuela for having the highest minimum wage and some of the most comprehensive social security benefits in Latin America.

Burgon also said Venezuelans' approval of a constitutional amendment to lift term limits on elected offices in a national referendum last month "once again underlined President Chávez's overwhelming support amongst Venezuelans."

"What I am really asking for is a cool, dispassionate acknowledgment of the great social progress that has been made in Venezuela," Burgon concluded. "We should build a constructive and open dialogue with the people of Venezuela and their leader, Hugo Chavez."

Likewise, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Gillian Merron stated, "I want to emphasize, as I have done before, how much we welcome President Chavez's emphasis on policies to help the poorest and most vulnerable people."

Toward the end of Tuesday's debate, several MPs agreed to continue to discuss the trade relationship between the European Union (EU) and the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) at an upcoming EU-South American ministerial meeting in Prague this May.

Too Big to Fail? The inevitable collapse of the US economy
Posted: Friday, March 6, 2009

¤ Tsvangirai's wife killed in car accident

¤ Release of Memos Fuels Push for Inquiry Into Bush's Terror-Fighting Policies
A day after releasing a set of Bush administration opinions that claimed sweeping presidential powers in fighting terrorism, the Obama administration faced new pressure on Tuesday to support a broad inquiry into interrogation, detention, surveillance and other practices under President George W. Bush. Justice Department officials said they might soon release additional opinions on those subjects. But the disclosure of the nine formerly secret documents fueled calls by lawmakers for an independent commission to investigate and make public what the Bush administration did in the global campaign against terrorism.

¤ Gaza Aftermath (4) Hammad's death barely made the news

¤ Memos Provide Blueprint for Police State
¤ Russian President Won't "Haggle" Over US Missile Defense Plans
¤ Obama cites need to 'reset' relations with Moscow

¤ The Obama-Medvedev Turbo Shuffle
The President Barack Obama administration urgently needs to do a couple of things: learn to play chess; and watch the DVD of the Godfather saga, especially larger-than-life parts I and II. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev didn't even have to be a good chess player to figure out he was not exactly being presented by Obama with a famous "offer he can't refuse".

¤ Obama 'ready to drop shield plans for Russian help on Iran'

¤ Venezuelan Government Takes Control of Rice Plants that Evade Regulated Prices
As of last Saturday, the Venezuelan government has temporarily taken over the administration of a rice processing plant in Guárico state that is owned by Venezuela's largest food producer, Polar.
Inspections by the National Institute in Defense of People's Access to Goods and Services (INDEPABIS) last week revealed that the plant was operating at half its capacity and adding artificial flavoring to 90% of its rice in order to evade government price controls, which only apply to essential, unenhanced food items.

¤ Venezuela Expropriates Cargill Rice Plant that Evaded Price Controls

¤ Inter-American Human Rights Court Says Venezuela Did Not Violate TV Station's Free Speech

¤ CIA destroyed 92 interrogation tapes
New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged.
The revelation Monday comes as a criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter. The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of the Bush administration's terror interrogation programs following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

¤ Wall Street's Best Investment
¤ Blueprints for a Police State

¤ The Banality of Occupation
This report is essentially an analyst's blueprint for perfecting the occupation of a country with the idea that the eventual result will be domination of the locals' minds, culture and economy, with the domination of the geography of secondary consideration or of no consideration at all. Like the television show Numbers that features a mathematician who works with the FBI by providing mathematical thinking to human endeavors like serial killing, drug smuggling, etc., the RAND study ignores the human and creative face of resistance by reducing ever element to a quantitative possibility with only so many possible outcomes.

¤ Obama's War on Terror
¤ The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

¤ The Iraqi Resistance Responds to President Obama
In Respect to the remarks of President Barak Hussain Obama, The president of the United States of America. The Political Committee of a number of factions in the Iraqi Resistance, mainly the factions present in our front, respond with our point of view on the contents of his speech.
Over the last four months, as the battle of our people continues to free Iraq of all foreign occupation. We have been studying the movements on the ground as well as analyzing the intelligence in order to assess the next strategy that the US administration will take under the leadership of the new presidency.

¤ It's Obama's War Now
¤ Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter
¤ War comes home to Britain
¤ Why and When We Will Get Out of Iraq and What Happens Then
¤ How Close the Bush Bullet
¤ Suicide Via Conformity

¤ Billions Dished Out in the Shadows
This is crazy! Forget the bleating of Rush Limbaugh; the problem is not with the quite reasonable and, if anything, underfunded stimulus package, which in any case will be debated long and hard in Congress. The problem is with what is not being debated: the far more expensive Wall Street bailout that is being pushed through--as in the case of the latest AIG rescue--in secret, hurried deal-making primarily by the unelected secretary of the treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Six months ago, we taxpayers began bailing out AIG with more than $140 billion, and then it went and lost $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, more than any other company in history had ever lost in one quarter.

¤ Too Big to Fail? The inevitable collapse of the US economy
The US economy is swaying, teetering heavily under the increased debt burden imposed by the Iraq War and now the looming banking crisis. President Obama's proposal to remediate the crisis situation by introducing more debt into the system is now law. The only problem is that, under the present circumstances, President Obama's therapeutic regimen represents, with a very high probability, the very medicine that will strike a mortal blow to the patient--in this case the US economy.

¤ Corruption-US: How Wall Street Paid For Its Own Funeral

¤ Banana Republic, U.S.A.
Barack Obama is already making the Clinton and Bush years seem like the good old days. Close to a trillion dollars are being tossed around in a “stimulus” package that no one in his right mind – and I do not here include the mainstream of the economics profession, which has disgraced itself in this crisis – expects to bring about recovery. Economist Robert Wenzel rightly describes the stimulus as “just the insiders raiding the till while there is still money in it.” Trillions of dollars are likewise being thrown at financial institutions that (if we actually believe in the free market) richly deserve to go bankrupt.

¤ U.S. Taxpayers: The Few. The Proud. The Unprofitable.

¤ Biofuels Do Far More Harm Than Good

¤ This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn
It was almost dreamlike, watching Secretary of State Clinton make her visit to Israel, one that can be called the first of many trips pretending to encourage peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. It's a dream I've had several times over; one needs only to simply fill in the names of the various U.S. Secretaries of State, say that they've met with the Israeli leadership and with Mahmoud Abbas, (who is about as popular with the Palestinians as Rush Limbaugh is with Democrats), and that no progress was made.

Venezuelan Government Takes Control of Rice Plants that Evade Regulated Prices
Posted: Tuesday, March 3, 2009

By James Suggett
March 02, 2009
Venezuelanalysis.com

As of last Saturday, the Venezuelan government has temporarily taken over the administration of a rice processing plant in Guárico state that is owned by Venezuela's largest food producer, Polar.

Inspections by the National Institute in Defense of People's Access to Goods and Services (INDEPABIS) last week revealed that the plant was operating at half its capacity and adding artificial flavoring to 90% of its rice in order to evade government price controls, which only apply to essential, unenhanced food items.

In a press conference on the floor of the plant Monday afternoon, INDEPABIS Director Eduardo Samán announced that the workers had begun processing 100% unmodified rice at the plant, disproving the claims of Polar executives that state intervention would paralyze production.

"The Venezuelan people with the patriotic and valiant workers at Polar have won the battle… the plant is functioning and producing quality rice, cultivated and packaged by Venezuelan workers, to be sold at regulated prices," said Samán, with machines roaring in the background.

Government officials will administer the plant for up to 90 days and hold discussions with private owners and the workers to resolve the production problems. The government plans to inspect two large rice processing plants in Portugesa state this week.

On his weekly presidential talk show Sunday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez warned that if rice processers attempt to shutdown their plants to protest the state's intervention, "we will expropriate all of their plants, and convert them from private property into social property." The Venezuelan constitution guarantees indemnity in the case of expropriation.

Chávez had previously threatened to intervene in private food production facilities in early 2008, on suspicion that Polar and others were hoarding food with the intention of causing political instability through food shortages and price hikes.

In a press conference Monday, Polar Chief of Operations Jesús Carmona admitted that the plant was diverting 90% of its rice to artificially flavored products. He said Polar had chosen this route because the actual cost of rice production is more than four bolivars per kilogram, nearly twice the regulated price of 2.33 bolivars per kilogram.

Carmona also said the plant was operating at half its capacity because of a shortage of rice on the market.

In rebuttal, Samán reported that INDEPABIS officials had found more than 16,000 tons of unpackaged, un-modified rice stored at the plant, which is what the workers began packaging on Monday. Juán Serrano, a spokesperson for the labor union at the plant, confirmed that the stored rice is enough to sustain production for two months if the plant operates at its maximum capacity.

In addition, Agriculture and Land Minister Elías Jaua said that nation-wide there are now 300,000 tons of stored rice, with the dry season harvest underway, so Venezuela's monthly demand of 90,000 tons of rice should be satisfied if processers and packagers comply with the government's food security laws.

"If there were a shortage of raw material [rice] on the market, then they would not be able to produce powdered or flavor-enhanced rice," said Jaua on Monday.

Statistics from the Agriculture and Land Ministry show that Venezuela increased its rice production by 94% since Chávez took office a decade ago, and produced 1.36 million tons of rice last year.

Venezuela's National Federation of Chambers of Commerce (FEDECAMARAS), one of the most powerful and anti-Chávez private sector associations in the country, challenged this statistic, and suggested that 1.05 million tons is a more accurate figure for 2008.

The government implemented price controls on a basket of essential food items more than five years ago and built a network of state-owned food producers and distributors to sell food at regulated or subsidized prices. In the last two years, it has adjusted prices to be in line with inflation without permitting excessive profit margins through price speculation.

The Chávez administration has invested heavily in agricultural production to diversify Venezuela's oil-dependent economy. The government has also nationalized or purchased a controlling share of several strategic sectors of the economy over the past two years, including electricity, steel, cement, and oil.

Source: www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4256

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